They worked for what seemed like hours to get the Light Gun hitched. If there’d been any Moroccans left within cursing range, thought James as they swung slowly east in the Unimog, they would have released us from that torture. He planned to launch their last shells from the eastern corner of the compound. They might be able to see the explosions and adjust their range. More importantly, it was on the way out. They found a good site and set up the gun for the final time.
‘You want to fire?’
James loaded an illuminating round, then walked round and showed the boy where to stand, what to avoid, and how to operate the firing mechanism. He stood clear and gave the signal. Benoit fired and the weapon thundered, pranced, settled in a pall of grainy smoke. The shell soared into the north and hung in the sky above the Moroccan encampment. James let his eyes adjust, then searched the dome of cold light. There. . . A gleam in the sand, a square silhouette that might be another VAB. He adjusted the range and bearing, checked the dial sight, reloaded and gave Benoit the thumbs up.
‘For Salif!’ James shouted. ‘For Sulamani!’
They fired twenty shells in two salvos, fifteen minutes to rest in between. It was cathartic to unleash the Light Gun’s violence, its warlike stench of hot steel and gunpowder smoke, its bone-shuddering noise. They fell into its rhythms, giving it the complete attention it demanded. Even so, Benoit left his hand the wrong side of the trail and snapped a finger from its socket, while James allowed a hot casing to brush his forearm, leaving a blackened welt to remind him of his carelessness.
Just as the last shell had flared in the distance, the sky brightened suddenly to reveal the huge vista of pale, rock-flecked desert stretching away on all sides. They looked east and saw a pale stain smudging the face of the rising sun. They climbed onto the roof of the Unimog for a better view, and saw plumes of powdery brown dancing along the horizon.
Dust.
A column of dust – kicked up by wheels, whirled by gusts and eddies into the clear morning air. You could see it for miles around. You couldn’t miss it. Especially not if you were the politically astute commander of a Moroccan Special Forces unit on a mission in a UN-designated ceasefire zone. You really couldn’t miss that.
‘Benoit,’ said James, gunning the Unimog into the east. ‘I believe the night is ours.’
Ten minutes later, the unit of Moroccan Special Forces was putting up a dust-cloud of its own, hurtling west as the brightening sun revealed the size of the Polisario force pursuing them across the desert. Riding in the back of Colonel Zaki’s 4x4 was Mehmet al Hamra of the Marrakech office of the DGST.
It was a disappointing end to a weary night – he had been greatly looking forward to a morning of light forensics inside the compound. Colonel Zaki’s indecisiveness when the satellite link went down had been painful to see. It could not be helped. The Polisario would come through this unscathed, but his other target had been hit: if that grand vizier of thievery and fraud known as Monsieur Claude Zender ever dared show his face in Marrakech again, then he, Mehmet al Hamra, would take great pleasure in throwing him in jail.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A dry gust made the canvas slap and Nat woke. The lantern had gone out and the drapes that lined the tent were smeared with grey light. That must be dawn, she thought. It didn’t feel like she’d slept at all. The night had been punctuated by sporadic bursts of gunfire: the Moroccans attacking the compound. James and the Polisario men would all have been killed.
Her head ached, her mouth was parched. She saw the silver pot the tea had come in and reached for it. It was still half full, and though it tasted of dredged mud she drank from the spout until there was none left. She drew up her knees and listened to the wind. The air in the tent had cleared, but it still smelled of groin-sweat, ash and shit. She found the two leaves of khat he’d dropped at her feet and started to chew. She remembered she had some painkillers in her handbag, took a double dose and wished she had saved some of the tea to wash them down. She took out her phone and switched it on. According to the clock, it was just after six-thirty. It started to bleat: low battery, missed appointment. . . She watched it blink through its litany of demands. A current of wind sent a skein of sand whipping under the flag over the entrance and over her naked feet. She felt cold.
The prince had been gone all night – leaving two men behind, he’d said. Nat didn’t feel like trying to escape. She didn’t even feel like leaving the tent. The khat had numbed her, put her into automatic. But after a while, she found the canvas pumps she’d been wearing, pulled them on, stood up and dusted herself down. Then she drew back the flag over the entrance a few inches and looked out.
The fire had died, leaving a circle of blackened rocks. A cooking pot lay on its side. A few paces from the firepit was a bush with a pink and white striped plastic bag snared in its branches. She made her way to the back of the tent and lifted the bottom of the canvas up far enough to see out. The Mercedes and one of the pickups were thirty yards away. She’d hoped Nikolai would be looking out for her, but there was no sign of him – or any of them. She guessed they were asleep. Two men wrapped in brown blankets squatted between her and the vehicles. One of them was talking to the other, wagging his finger. An older man, with close-cropped white hair, an automatic rifle between his knees. The other was small and bony, hunched like a vulture, a black scarf stretched tight over his scalp and knotted behind.
The contents of their Mercedes had been unloaded – she saw the water bottles stacked over by the pickup. Nat watched for a few minutes. A wash of cold light had spilled into the sky above the eastern horizon. The desert looked bleak, impassable. That they were here at all seemed beyond comprehension. Then she heard one of those pounding explosions roll in from the west. The men stopped talking and turned to look – Nat dropped the canvas and prayed they hadn’t seen her. A minute later, there was another explosion. Then another. Was the fight for the compound still not over? She counted the blasts: ten, then a fifteen-minute pause, then another ten.
She leaned against one of the prince’s cushions, gripped by the knowledge that now was surely the time to act but paralysed by the idea of doing anything. It seemed unforgivable that Nikolai was asleep. She spent long minutes pondering the misery and injustice of her plight, until her reverie was broken by a mucous-laden snore from inside the Mercedes. Well, that was just great. She stood up in a fury and ran from the tent.
‘Nikolai, fucking wake up!’
She went on screaming, not bothering with words when she ran out of them. The two men threw off their blankets and turned to face her. Then the older man looked back at the Mercedes.
‘Stay in car!’ he shouted.
He looked stiff in the legs and his back wouldn’t straighten up, but the rifle was at his shoulder in an instant. He aimed at the passenger window. Nat saw Anton’s head slip down out of sight.
‘Stay! I shoot!’
The boy with the black headscarf was staring at her. Nat leaned forward and yelled at him. ‘Don’t fucking look at me!’
‘Get the whore in the tent,’ the older man shouted. The boy – he was barely older than sixteen – didn’t move.
Nikolai sat up in his seat and wound down the dust-filmed window.
‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said in Russian. ‘Micky’s got his door unlocked – the snore was to cover the noise.’
‘In tent!’ the old man shouted again. He kicked out at the boy, who ran up and grabbed her arm.
‘Nat, do what he says,’ said Nikolai. He turned to the older man. ‘Boss not here. You’re in charge. Let me out of the car, I need a piss.’
‘The fuck I will,’ said Nat, and kicked the boy violently in the shin. He yelped and started to swing the butt of his rifle at her, but before he’d even got close Nat hooked the fingernails of one hand into his eyes, seized the knot of black cotton at the back of his head, and lashed her foot into his groin. He went down, retching. She tore the rifle from his hand and flung it at the Mercedes, where it clattere
d against the tailgate. Nat turned back to the boy and stamped on his stomach.
The older man pointed his rifle at Nat. ‘Back, back,’ he shouted. ‘In tent!’ He glanced over to where the rifle had landed, not far from the rear of the Mercedes.
‘Boss won’t be pleased if you shoot her,’ said Nikolai.
The man’s eyes swivelled from the rifle, back to Nat and the boy still doubled up on the ground. He started over to the rear of the Mercedes. Every few yards he paused to look back at Nat, as if he were playing grandmother’s footsteps. He got close enough to pick up the rifle, looked again at Nat, then stooped.
Mikhail catapulted out from behind the rear wing of the Mercedes, driving his shoulder into the old man’s midriff just as he straightened up. They hit the ground together and Mikhail swung his fist into the man’s ear. He didn’t need much space to generate a powerful blow, and the man’s eyes rolled back. Anton threw open the front door of the Mercedes and ran to collect the rifles. He handed one to Nikolai.
‘Nice move, Micky,’ said Nikolai. ‘Look for his blade.’
There was a knife strapped to the man’s calf, barely hidden by the frayed cuffs of his tracksuit bottoms. Nat looked down at the youth. One of his eyes was bulging and laced with red. Anton came and checked him for weapons, then tied him up and locked him in the pickup.
‘I thought we’d had it,’ he said finally, pulling a bottle of water from the pack. ‘I thought I’d spent my last night on earth listening to Micky’s nose-music.’
Nat walked over towards the Mercedes. Her head swayed from side to side with each step. She felt hollowed out. Her bones were heavy, the muscles in her legs like soggy string. She slumped down by the stack of water bottles, but couldn’t muster the strength to open it. Anton twisted off the cap and passed it down.
‘Tie up the old guy, Mikhail, for fuck’s sake,’ said Nikolai.
Mikhail went and cut a length of rope from the prince’s tent. Two of its sides caved slowly inwards. He bound the man’s hands behind his back, then his feet, then joined hands to feet and drew the rope tight. The man came round and started a frantic gabble. Mikhail lifted him easily, waddled over to the half-collapsed tent and flung him inside.
‘Can we get the fuck out of here?’ said Nat.
‘What about the kid?’ asked Anton.
‘Leave him in the pickup. He won’t come after us,’ said Nikolai.
‘Shoot him,’ said Mikhail. ‘Better for everyone.’
‘He’s just a kid,’ Nikolai said.
‘Aren’t we going to take the pickup?’ said Anton.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Nat. ‘I’m tired. I’ve been assaulted. I want to get the fuck out of here. Does that help you make up your minds?’
None of the men could look her in the eye.
‘If he comes back, I’ll tear his fucking throat out,’ Nikolai grunted.
‘I won’t be around to see it,’ said Nat. She walked over and climbed into the driver’s seat of the Mercedes. ‘You coming?’
‘Sweet Jesus, Nat, I’m sorry,’ said Nikolai. He reached forward to touch her on the shoulder but she leaned away. ‘Mikhail, load the water. And see if there’s any diesel around. Anton, find our weapons.’
‘The guns have been a big fucking help so far,’ said Nat. ‘Get the aluminium box that’s in the tent. We’re taking it with us.’
The IPD400, finally in her possession. Its presence seemed almost offensive, given the suffering it had caused. For a moment she was tempted to leave it here in the desert, see how it took to a colony of ants and a coating of baked dust. Instead, she went and pulled down the flag from over the entrance to the prince’s tent. It seemed like the perfect souvenir.
It was late morning when the Unimog, with James at the wheel and Benoit asleep beside him, finally caught up with the Mercedes. Nat threw her arms around James and hugged him, then smiled at Benoit and kissed him on the top of his head. She led James to the rear of the car and opened the boot. The IPD400 was lying on its side in a nest of oily rags.
‘We found it in the tent of a. . . ’ She didn’t want to refer to him as a prince. ‘Some gang of thieves. They must have stolen it from Zender.’
‘How did you get it back?’
‘Let’s not talk about it now,’ said Nat. ‘Later, maybe.’
James sensed that Nat wanted him to be pleased, but instead he felt deflated. Why was she so subdued? What new horror had the pursuit of his invention caused? He felt he ought to give this moment his full attention, but his mind was grappling with an exhaustion so profound it seemed too much effort even to narrow his eyes against the sunlight flashing off the Mercedes’ chromework.
‘Thank you, Nat,’ was all he could say.
‘I didn’t think you’d make it, James, when I heard the guns. But you survived. Nikolai is safe. . . ’
Sarah isn’t, he thought. Their eyes met, and in a moment of shocking lucidity he saw how much Nat was suffering – that despite her recital of their successes, she was nearly done for. He reached out a hand to comfort her. She brushed her fingertips against his, then shrugged and turned away. She desperately wanted to be somewhere cool and peaceful where they could talk, but instead they were parked up in a gully carved between two low crests of crumbling rock. She shielded her eyes and looked around. You couldn’t even see the horizon through the hazy brown air.
‘Suli got killed and we’re lost,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose Benoit knows the way?’
It seemed that he did. They travelled on in convoy. Anton joined them in the Unimog and told them about their night with the Mauritanian prince and his savage court, though he did not say what had happened to Nat. After four hours they came to a village with a Polisario outpost. The man in charge handed them dates, a bowl of corn and some pieces of roast chicken in a pink-striped plastic bag, then refuelled the Mercedes and told Benoit how to get to the next outpost. They village-hopped east, and the road got worse. Even the scrub bushes had given up. One of the rear springs on the Mercedes snapped and the vehicle dragged itself along like a wounded dog for a few miles before the other one went and they had to abandon it and cram themselves into the Unimog.
They reached Bir Lehlou in the late afternoon. A detachment of Polisario had set up a roadblock on the outskirts of town. An elderly officer drew out a pair of dilapidated spectacles and treated the letters Sulamani had given them to a ceremonious inspection. Satisfied, he transferred his new guests to a pair of ancient black Chrysler saloons, their creased and dimpled bodywork so highly polished it was hard to look at them in the late afternoon sun. They were driven into town at high speed, arriving at the gates to a mud-walled compound with a Polisario flag out front. The Chryslers drew up to a low, square building with narrow windows and a heavy wooden door. In the corner of the yard they saw the MINURSO Land Cruiser. No doubt Commander Djouhroub would be sitting in a state of stony-faced confusion somewhere in the building. There was no sign of the vehicles in which the other guards had travelled.
They were led off to makeshift bedrooms and shown plastic basins of warm, rust-tinted water in which they might wash. An assortment of clean clothes had been laid out for them. An older woman with a deal of authority about her bustled in and indicated that she had come to see to James’s back. James redirected her to Benoit’s dislocated finger. She examined it closely and prodded the area round the swelling, then gave him a sweet smile, said something soothing, and tucked his forearm under her powerful armpit. She grasped the finger and rotated it, then levered it back into its socket with a powerful driving twist. Benoit gulped. She patted him on the arm, then wagged a finger at James. He started to unbutton his shirt.
Later the Polisario officer, accompanied by three uniformed boys, led them to a room off the hall where they sat round a trestle table and ate stewed goat and cornmeal. A few minutes into the meal, Rakesh Nazli turned up, looking very clean and very anxious.
‘You made it,’ James observed. ‘I guess you had some talking to d
o.’
Nazli gave a nervous laugh. ‘Dr Palatine,’ he said, ‘I hope you understand that my role in all this was purely technical. I had no idea. . . well, how it would all turn out.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ said James. ‘Still, the money was good.’
‘I haven’t even been paid,’ said Nazli, the familiar whine returning to his voice. ‘When you leave here, do you think I could come with you?’
‘No,’ said James. ‘Stay here and keep talking.’
The diners fell silent. After a few minutes, Nat started to question the elderly officer. It seemed that they were in a building occupied by the Polisario high command – most of whom had gone west to drive off the Moroccan invaders. There was outrage that the enemy had dared to enter the Free Zone, and absolute certainty that they would have their comeuppance. When James told him that he’d seen the Special Forces unit fleeing back to the Wall of Shame, the elderly officer was so overcome with emotion that he could not speak but only shook his fist in triumph.
The three teenage boys, meanwhile, were staring at the foreign arrivals as if they had fallen from the sky.
‘It’s like being in a zoo,’ said Nikolai. ‘Hey, boys, know any songs?’
The three boys quailed.
‘I don’t think anyone’s in a party mood,’ said Nat.
‘Give me a beer, I’ll sing,’ said Mikhail.
‘No,’ said Anton, ‘you’ll make a noise that will have everyone wondering how the pig got into the room.’
The next day, Manni Hasnaoui, to whom Colonel Sulamani had addressed one of his letters, came to see them. He was a fierce-looking man, bent to such a degree that he had to twist his neck sideways in order to direct one eye at James’s face. Having observed the effort needed to inspect him, James felt it would be churlish to look away, and so found himself transfixed for the few moments it took Hasnaoui to size him up. His demeanour was gruff, but when James told him that Sulamani had died he wept openly, waiting for the tears to finish before he wiped them away. Then he clamped his bony hand around James’s wrist and said:
Little Sister (A James Palatine Novel) Page 37